Gainesville TimesProtest held outside detention center

Demonstrators decry immigration policies

About 50 people gathered outside an immigration detention center in midtown Gainesville Thursday to protest immigration policies they said lead to broken families and undue hardships for working people.

Demonstrators from St. Michael Catholic Church, Detention Watch Network and others held a prayer vigil and gave testimony in an hourlong, peaceful demonstration outside the North Georgia Detention Center, former site of the Hall County jail. Protesters said current federal and local policies too often lead to the deportation of people who have committed no serious crimes, leaving behind children and families who struggle to survive.

“We see it every day, good people, the bread winners of their family, being picked up and deported,” said Alan Shope, St. Michael’s social justice committee chairman. “It’s leaving so much pain, and those are the people we are trying to be a voice for.”

Shope said the group was protesting immigration policies and had no specific problems with the staff of the North Georgia Detention Center, which is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America under a contract with Hall County.

The company leases the former Hall County jail location from the county for $2 million annually and holds as many as 500 detainees for the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. Many of the detainees, who are awaiting deportation proceedings, come from other parts of the state and country, though some are from Hall County.

No officials from ICE or CCA were present for the permitted protest, held just a few feet from the detention center’s front doors.

CCA spokesman Steve Owen said in a statement that the employees at the North Georgia Detention Center “provide a safe and secure environment for the detainees entrusted to our care, and do so in a professional manner that respects the dignity of every individual.”

“CCA provides services for immigration detention but as a company does not take a position with respect to broader immigration policy,” Owen said.

ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado noted that the agency last fall announced a major overhaul of its immigration detention system to prioritize health and safety for detainees.

“ICE has taken important initial steps to change this system and is committed to finishing the job,” he said.

Ortiz-Delgado said in a statement that the federal agency “respects the fundamental right of individuals to advocate for reform of our nation’s immigration laws.”

Diana Mendoza, a secretary at Gainesville Exploration Academy who spoke at Thursday’s protest, said she has seen the fallout from current immigration policies in the schools.

“Our children have really suffered from families being divided,” she said. “They are innocent, and they have to go through this. We can make a difference, I know we can.”

The protest was part of a nationwide campaign organized by the Detention Watch Network and the American Civil Liberties Union called “Dignity, Not Detention.”

Bojana Jankova, 18, was one of 11 international students from Indiana’s Goshen College who attended the protest. The group spent the previous day at the Stewart Detention Center, an immigration holding facility in the city of Lumpkin.

“It’s a huge issue in the United States,” Jankova said. “I just want to support this movement, because I believe everyone deserves equal opportunity.”

Everitt Howe, a member of Detention Watch Georgia from Sandy Springs, said he and others from the group came to Gainesville on Thursday to show solidarity.

“We don’t need more jails, we need fewer jails,” Howe said. “These are real people, and a lot of them are not felons, but they’re thrown in jail like hardened criminals. It’s really sad.”

Azadeh Shahshahani, immigrants’ rights project director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, said the protest, one of several held Thursday at detention facilities across the country, only marked the beginning of the campaign.

“We expect several more targeted actions,” Shahshahani said. “We’re going to keep at this.”

HERE

Deseret News

Utah Legislature: Senate panel backs E-Verify bill

SALT LAKE CITY — A proposal to require all Utah businesses to verify employees’ legal right to work has earned approval from a Senate committee, but a criminal penalty attached to the mandate will likely be stripped away before it goes before the full Senate.

SB251, sponsored by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, would require that all companies in the state utilize federal electronic screening programs to ensure any new hires may work in the country legally. He said the bill will create jobs by forcing undocumented workers elsewhere.

“This bill will give a lot more jobs to our work force because, if a person is here from wherever on Earth … if they can’t get a job because of E-Verify (federal electronic screening system), they’re going to leave the state.”

Buttars constructed the bill so that a business that failed to comply with the requirement would face a variety of penalties, including losing any license issued by the state; being banned from state contracts; and a possible class B misdemeanor, a criminal charge that carries a $1,000 fine and six months in jail…

HERE

Gwinnett Daily Post

Bill would require businesses to participate in E-Verify program

LAWRENCEVILLE — In an economy where jobs are hard to find, state Rep. Bobby Reese wants to make sure the ones that are available aren’t taken by illegal immigrants.

Reese, who is running for Congress, recently filed House Bill 1259, known as The Georgia Employer and Worker Protection Act of 2010. The legislation would require Georgia businesses to participate in the E-Verify program as a condition for obtaining a business license or occupational tax certificate.

“Far too many of Georgia’s jobs have gone to people who escaped capture while crossing our borders in violation of American immigration laws,” Reese, a Republican from Sugar Hill said. “Statewide use of the proven, effective and successful E-Verify system will stop future jobs from going to illegal labor. In these desperate economic times, while we watch Georgian citizens and legal immigrants struggle with layoffs, it would be irresponsible to ignore this no-cost federal tool.”

E-Verify is an Internet-based system that allows employees to verify the eligibility of a person to work in the United States. It was created by Congress in 1996.

Due to a 2006 law, Gwinnett’s government and anyone bidding for contracts, such as road construction projects, must use the system.

People who apply for an occupational tax certificate locally already must sign an affidavit saying they are eligible to work in this country. The new legislation would expand that to use the E-Verify system to check workers’s status.

“We all know that you can’t tell who is an eligible worker by looking at him, which is the reason for the I-9 form and the E-Verify system. We are trying to protect both businesses and American workers in Georgia,” Reese said adding that people are given time to clear up inaccuracies and that no one eligible to work in the country should lose their job.

Exceptions were made to home-based small businesses with less than three employees.

“We must all obey the law and even one American job is too many to lose to someone who is not eligible,” Reese said.

Rep. Pedro Marin, D-Duluth, one of a handful of Hispanic representatives in the Legislature, declined to comment until he had a chance to read the bill.

HERE

Dallas Morning News

U.S. ‘surge’ targets illegals who have criminal records

The nation’s top immigration cop said Friday that the Obama administration is stepping up enforcement against immigrants who commit crimes and will move aggressively against employers who hire unauthorized labor. — This week, 284 illegal [aliens…. criminals] with criminal convictions were arrested in Texas…

HERE

Center for Immigration Studies

An examination of minority voters’ views on immigration

While it is sometimes assumed that minorities, particularly Hispanics, favor increased immigration and legalization for illegal immigrants, a new Zogby survey finds that minority voters’ views are more complex. The poll of Hispanic, Asian-American, and African-American likely voters finds some support for legalization…

HERE

The Root

How illegal immigration hurts black America

In October 2008, amidst claims that one of its subsidiaries was knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, North Carolina poultry producer House of Raeford Farms initiated a systematic conversion of its workforce. — Following a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid that nabbed 300 undocumented workers at a Columbia Farms processing plant…

MORE HERE

Marietta Daily Journal

D.A. King: Some observations on the crime of illegal immigration
by D.A. King

Guest Columnist

February 26, 2010 01:00

The abysmal economy and the unavoidable fact that at least 15 million Americans are out of work has apparently killed the 2010 illegal alien/criminal employer amnesty legislation. Even the Obama White House can see that the ridiculous argument promoted for so many years that we must grant amnesty because of some contrived “labor shortage” and that there are “jobs Americans will not do” won’t fool enough people this year.

It would be a mistake to gloat about the likely demise of the 2010 “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” scam. Including an “Amnesty Inc.” open borders coalition of “conservatives” such as Grover Norquist, the chambers of commerce and leftist radical groups like the National Council of La Raza, many powerful people will never stop the attempt to create the international free flow of labor and the lowest possible wages in America.

After a campaign promise to get legalization done in his first year in office, Obama threw the radical La Raza network under the bus in his State of the Union speech by avoiding the amnesty issue, aside from just 37 words near the end of his speech: “And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation” said the president. Oops.

The La Raza mob is seething, and collectively threatening to stay home for the mid-term elections. Maybe they backed the wrong candidate. John McCain had promised to present a comprehensive immigration reform to congress and “would do it in the first day” of his RINO (Republican in Name Only) reign.

It should also be noted that Obama’s remarks amounted to 37 more words on illegal immigration and that crime’s consequences than were uttered by anyone at a recent Gold Dome rally staged by “a coalition of coalitions” called the “Conservative Leadership Coalition of Georgia.” The rally included at least one Tea Party group.

One of the greatest fears of the upper management in both political parties is that the Tea Party movement will aggressively take up the border security/ immigration issue. So far, though, no worries. Anybody ever heard of a Tea Party rally against illegal immigration and illegal employment – while our neighbors stand in the unemployment line? Me neither.

Which brings us to the Cobb County Courthouse Criminal Construction Caper … and existing law. Let’s get something straight: It has been a federal crime since 1986 to knowingly employ illegal aliens.

In 2006, state Sen. Chip Rogers (R-north Cobb) courageously stood up to an assortment of powerful anti-enforcement forces and authored what was then the most advanced and effective state level illegal immigration legislation in the nation. During a long international media frenzy, he was called a variety of dreadful names, had a map to his family home published on the front page of a foreign-language Atlanta newspaper and received threatening late-night phone calls.

Rogers is an American hero. His legislation, the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, passed and was signed into law.

It includes language that requires public employers and their contractors – and their subcontractors – to use the federal E-Verify database. The law is unambiguous: “Subcontractor” includes a subcontractor, contract employee, staffing agency, or any contractor regardless of its tier” (OCGA 13-10-90).

Enough with the “sub-sub-contractor” imagined “loophole” conversation. Let’s all stop the redefinitions and get to work on protecting the American worker in Georgia.

A recent AP report on the illegal alien population in Georgia uses a quote from a specialist in demographic trends at the University of Southern California, Dowell Myers. “The only way you’re going to get the illegal immigrant population in Georgia to go down is to legalize them or get rid of the jobs,” observed Myers.

He is half wrong. We tried the legalization reward in 1986. It doesn’t work. Let’s resort to “Plan B.” Let’s enforce the law on jobs.

Many elected officials need to listen more closely. We The People have had enough. We need more heroes.

E-Verify use should be a requirement for obtaining and renewing a business license. It should be very costly for all concerned to violate Rogers’ 2006 law – a law that says we must obey the law.

D.A. King is a nationally recognized authority on illegal immigration and president of the Cobb-based Dustin Inman Society, which advocates for the enforcement of immigration laws. On the Web: www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org

HERE

O.C.G.A. § 13-10-90

GEORGIA CODE
Copyright 2009 by The State of Georgia

*** Current through the 2009 Regular Session ***

TITLE 13. CONTRACTS
CHAPTER 10. CONTRACTS FOR PUBLIC WORKS
ARTICLE 3. SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION COMPLIANCE

O.C.G.A. ╖ 13-10-90 (2009)

╖ 13-10-90. Definitions

As used in this article, the term:

(1) “Commissioner” means the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Labor.

(2) “Federal work authorization program” means any of the electronic verification of work authorization programs operated by the United States Department of Homeland Security or any equivalent federal work authorization program operated by the United States Department of Homeland Security to verify information of newly hired employees, pursuant to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), D.L. 99-603.

(3) “Public employer” means every department, agency, or instrumentality of the state or a political subdivision of the state.

(4) “Subcontractor” includes a subcontractor, contract employee, staffing agency, or any contractor regardless of its tier.

HISTORY: Code 1981, ╖ 13-10-90, enacted by Ga. L. 2006, p. 105, ╖ 2/SB 529.

O.C.G.A. § 13-10-91

TITLE 13. CONTRACTS
CHAPTER 10. CONTRACTS FOR PUBLIC WORKS
ARTICLE 3. SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION COMPLIANCE

O.C.G.A. § 13-10-91 (2009)

§ 13-10-91. (For effective date, see note.) Verification of new employee eligibility; applicability; rules and regulations

(a) Every public employer, including, but not limited to, every municipality and county, shall register and participate in the federal work authorization program to verify employment eligibility of all newly hired employees. Upon federal authorization, a public employer shall permanently post the employer’s federally issued user identification number and date of authorization, as established by the agreement for authorization, on the employer’s website; provided, however, that if a local public employer does not maintain a website, the identification number and date of authorization shall be published annually in the official legal organ for the county. State departments, agencies, or instrumentalities may satisfy the requirement of this Code section by posting information required by this Code section on one website maintained and operated by the state.

(b) (1) No public employer shall enter into a contract pursuant to this chapter for the physical performance of services within this state unless the contractor registers and participates in the federal work authorization program to verify information of all newly hired employees or subcontractors. Before a bid for any such service is considered by a public employer, the bid shall include a signed, notarized affidavit from the contractor attesting to the following:

(A) The affiant has registered with and is authorized to use the federal work authorization program;

(B) The user identification number and date of authorization for the affiant; and

(C) The affiant is using and will continue to use the federal work authorization program throughout the contract period. An affidavit required by this subsection shall be considered an open public record once a public employer has entered into a contract for services; provided, however, that any information protected from public disclosure by federal law shall be redacted.

(2) No contractor or subcontractor who enters a contract pursuant to this chapter with a public employer shall enter into such a contract or subcontract in connection with the physical performance of services within this state unless the contractor or subcontractor registers and participates in the federal work authorization program to verify information of all newly hired employees.

(c) This Code section shall be enforced without regard to race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or national origin.

(d) Except as provided in subsection (e) of this Code section, the Commissioner shall prescribe forms and promulgate rules and regulations deemed necessary in order to administer and effectuate this Code section and publish such rules and regulations on the Georgia Department of Labor’s website.

(e) The commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation shall prescribe all forms and promulgate rules and regulations deemed necessary for the application of this Code section to any contract or agreement relating to public transportation and shall publish such rules and regulations on the Georgia Department of Transportation’s website.

(f) No employer or agency or political subdivision, as such term is defined in Code Section 50-36-1, shall be subject to lawsuit or liability arising from any act to comply with the requirements of this Code section.

HISTORY: Code 1981, § 13-10-91, enacted by Ga. L. 2006, p. 105, § 2/SB 529; Ga. L. 2009, p. 970, § 1/HB 2.

Rep. Reese Introduces Georgia Employer and Worker Protection Act of 2010

ATLANTA (February 23, 2010) — State Representative Bobby Reese (R-Sugar Hill) announced today the filing of The Georgia Employer and Worker Protection Act of 2010, House Bill 1259. This legislation is designed to protect jobs for Georgians by requiring Georgia businesses to participate in the E-Verify program as a condition for obtaining a business license or occupational tax certificate.

“Far too many of Georgia’s jobs have gone to people who escaped capture while crossing our borders in violation of American immigration laws,” said Representative Reese. “Statewide use of the proven, effective and successful E-Verify system will stop future jobs from going to illegal labor. In these desperate economic times, while we watch Georgian citizens and legal immigrants struggle with layoffs, it would be irresponsible to ignore this no-cost federal tool.”

E-Verify, created by an act of Congress in 1996, is an internet-based system that allows an employer, using information reported on an employee’s Form I-9, or Employment Eligibility Verification, to determine the eligibility of that employee to work in the United States. There is no charge to employers to use E-Verify, a system operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration.

In Georgia, use of E-Verify is currently required by law for public employers and their contractors under the 2006 Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act.
Statewide use of the E-Verify system has been proven to successfully prevent future jobs from going to illegal labor. More than 184,000 employers are enrolled in the E-Verify program, with over 8.7 million queries run through the system in fiscal year 2009. As of January 30, 2010, there were over 4.2 million queries run through the system in fiscal year 2010.

“This bill would serve to protect both Georgia employers and lawful workers,” said Representative Reese. “It provides a ‘safe harbor’ for businesses that use E-Verify in good faith and verifies the eligibility of newly hired employees to work in the United States.”

Thirteen states, including South Carolina and Mississippi, have E-Verify legislation in place, with several more in various stages of legislative process.

HERE

Financial Advisory

Here’s Your “Change”: Mass layoffs by U.S. manufacturers surge in January

By definition, a mass layoff in he United States is those job cuts that involve 50 or more workers from the same company. Those types of events increased by 35 in January 2010 to 1,761, according to data released. — This is odd in that it has been asserted by government officials that we’re on the edge of new jobs being created in the U.S. economy…

HERE